The present invention relates generally to calenders and more particularly to a method and apparatus for charging a two- or multi-roll calender, in particular for rubber processing, consisting of conveyor belts and a cutting device for cutting strips of a deformable material to be fed into the calender. The strips are preferably produced from as an elongate mass or strand developed by an extruder or a rolling mill and then cut into strips.
The feeding of calenders is accomplished by various known devices, which convey the material to be fed to a feed point as a strip or flat billet.
It is a known practice to set up an extruder perpendicular to the axes of the calender rolls in front of the calender and to arrange between the extruder, and the gap to be fed between the calender rolls, a conveyor belt which is pivotable from one roll end of the calender to the other and back. As the speed of the pivoting of the conveyor belt is lower at the reversal points of the pivoting motion than in the central region between the reversal points, there results an uneven feeding; more material is supplied at the sides of the calender than in the middle region. As a result, material must be displaced toward the center if the product leaving the calender is not to be uneven.
It is also known for feeding a calender to set up a round billet extruder in the direction of the roll axes of the calender and to transport the billet on a conveyor belt to a position before the nip, to cut the billet off, and to tilt the end of the conveyor belt about its longitudinal direction or dimension so that the cut-off round billet falls into the calender nip. Since the round billet consists of a rubber mix which is sticky, often the transfer of the billet when pivoting the conveyor belt into the nip does not take place in the desired manner, as the billet does not roll off the side of the conveyor belt in the desired manner. Moreover, feeding a calender with round billet segments has the additional disadvantage that they are not drawn into the nip as well as wide or flat billet-like strips.